messity mess mess. but not without hope.

so roommate came to visit all last week and we had some good chats about stuff as usual. and it got me thinking. and then tonight for fhe we had a little lesson dealio from a "relationship expert" about "bridging the gap" between the genders. yes, a good, well-intentioned activity. but i came away from it wondering if we dont sometimes create more gap by beating these dead horses. am i the only one that feels they have heard the "why do girls go to the bathroom in groups" question/joke a bajillion times? and heres the thing: im not that girl. i dont generally go to the bathroom unless i need to go the bathroom. i have always felt i was a little less compassionate, a little more selfish, perhaps a little heartless because of this. but i just am not a fan of silly things like that. anywho, thats a side note, but as i just sat and listened to this lady, whom i am sure has helped many a struggling couple find common ground, i couldnt help but feel that all this stuff is just too cliche and overgeneralized to be helpful really. havent we all heard this?! havent we all gotten the silly email forwards about "what guys want" and "why women do such and such" and whatnot? its not that we dont know these things. its that it takes a lot of effort to do it. just like relationships in general. and quite honestly, i really dont buy a lot of it. it was mentioned that men cant "multitask" and women can. well guess what people, i kinda sorta dont believe in multitasking at all. i am efficient, i get lots of things done, but for anyone to claim that they can listen to, process, and understand two different streams of auditory input at once is just rubbish. people, we have limited cognitive resources, and if we spread them too thin, doing too many things at once, the quality of something is going to suffer. plain and simple. you will make mistakes, you will screw things up if you really honestly do several things at once. thats a beef ive had for a long time, so there you go. now, yes, of course there are absolute differences in men and women. im certainly not saying there arent. im just thinkin that most of the strategies and "gap building" skills she was talking about are just basic, being a good person and a good communicator skills. yes, one could argue that i am of course a woman, and i am right now venting which is an ironic perfect example of what the lady was talking about tonight, that we women need to vent. and yes im a woman, which means communication is perhaps a bigger deal to me and thats why i focus on it, but i dont think its just that. i think, as my good friend confirmed to me tonight (male friend) that very often in these discussion we over-simplify men. they say they just have an "on" and an "off" switch. rubbish. guys have a lot more going on than that and i know it. i just feel that as we keep having these little "understand each other" discussions, we validate certain behaviors and make the genders feel that that is how they "should" behave because they have heard so much that that is what their gender is known for, ya know? i know we girls do crazy things. i know we are hard to understand. but guys insist they are every bit as scared of rejection and whatnot and that leads them to do crazy things, analyze behaviors, just like we girls do. like i said, im sure this lady has helped many clueless people navigate many a tricky situation, and i am not dissing her because i know she honestly wants to help us. but i sincerely want to know if im the only one that feels that we overtalk this (granted, its fun to talk about this stuff in small circles, but a lecture setting is different) and use the same examples over and over and it doesnt get us anywhere? ok now moving on, the next topic is kind of related and i think will require a completely different blog post. its one my roommate and i discussed. loving and being loved. she says that in every relationship someone loves more than the other. so would you rather be the one that loves more or is loved more? its a sucky question indeed. and im just not sure if i buy it yet. but its been interesting to ponder..... to be continued.